Thought you’d have go to a sports bar to see the Patriots try to make history Saturday? Now you can watch from the comfort of your armchair.

Saturday night’s game between New England and the New York Giants on the NFL Network, which is available in fewer than 40 percent of the nation’s homes with TVs, now will be simulcast on CBS and NBC (KCNC-4 and KUSA-9 locally).

The Patriots could become the first NFL team to go 16-0 in the regular season.

“We have taken this extraordinary step because it is in the best interest of our fans,” commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement after the league announced it was reversing course.

The NFL had claimed that the onus of making the game widely available fell on the major cable providers with which the league has feuded. Companies such as Comcast have declined to carry the network as part of basic packages.

But lawmakers have pressured the NFL to ensure more viewers could see the game. Last week, two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., sent a letter to Goodell threatening to reconsider the league’s antitrust exemption.

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